Upgrade Socket A Mobo?

[xiaolongbao]

I have Athlon 2200 on an Asus A7V333 mobo. Also 1.5gb of 2100 DDR2 ram (three 512 sticks), and a PNY 6600 gpu with 256 in memory, Plextor PX-716 DVD, WD3200JB HD, WD400AA and Maxtor HD's. I have a number of PCI slots taken for LAN, extra USB 2.0/firewire cards, etc. I built another PC (Core 2 Duo) and have cleaned up my Athlon and also done a clean install of XP.

I'm looking at getting either an Asus A7N8X or Abit NF7-s board. Other than being able to eliminate a lot of the I/O stuff currently on the PCI, is there any real benefit?

Also, the RAM I have is not dual channel but from what I've read, this does not create any compatability issues with the two boards mentioned.

I currently do not overclock nor is the machine used for gaming. Primarily MS Office functions including large PPT presentations, video playback and picture editing.

I may get into overclocking this one given that I have another primary machine. When the Athlon was my primary machine, I looked for a reliable and stable platform.

Oh yeah, the boards 5 years old now and the Athlon definitely runs hot. I've always used an aftermarket heatsink on it, starting with a Thermalright SLK-800 and currently a Thermalright SI-97.

Any thoughts and comment are appreciated.

 

[o1die]

Those boards are excellent, but I would put a reasonable price limit on what you'll spend. I just got my newegg email, and for $60 after rebate, I can get a socket 754 pci-e board with athlon 64 3200 (heatsink extra). Those deals make investing in a socket a board less attractive. Nows a good time to upgrade while you can still get socket 754 or 939 setups that use ddram.

 

[Gh0stDrag0n]

Not really any real benefit upgrading this system, IMO. Socket A and 939 have been replaced with AM2 and good replacements are getting harder to find. It is best to run it as it is untill it dies or upgrade the whole system with a sub $500 Athlon 64 X2, AM2 system.

 

[Mondoman]

Just a note that your RAM is DDR, not DDR2; all the last CPUs that used DDR could use PC3200 speed DDR, so your PC2100 DDR is not very useful. Plan on buying a new DDR2-based system. Having 2 or 3GB of RAM in your system will help with multiple Office apps/windows open at the same time, and DDR2 is now only $40/GB or so.